COLDSKY.CN – The knowledge arm of Chinese video streaming company iQiyi.com, China’s answer to Netflix, plans to focus on the merchandise of copyrighted content, interactive video, and encyclopaedia next year.
More and more Chinese companies are competing in paid subscription content, trading knowledge for cash amid the high Internet penetration, faster access speed and lower cost in the world’s second largest economy.
Ge Chengzhi, director of the Research Institute at iQiyi.com, said the number of users who paid to acquire knowledge online grew 30 percent year on year in last month and video, especially short video, has become the increasingly popular medium to get knowledge.
Liu Wenfeng, Chief Technology Officer and President of Infrastructure and Intelligent Content Distribution Business Group at iQiyi.com, also said, upon the arrival of 5G and artificial intelligence, the company will give priority to short videos and spread knowledge by combining technology and entertainment ways to reach the broad user base.
iQiyi.com vice president Wang Xuepu also said the knowledge arm will make its products ‘high-quality, trendy, and tailored.’ The platform reported 100 million paid subscribers in June.
iQiyi.com has adapted its popular drama series The Golden Eyes to an online course about cultural relics in Qing Dynasty by partnering with Xie Tianjing, who has built a reputation for collection, restoration and interpretation of relics as well as exhibition planning. The 12-episode course, given in a light-hearted way, costs 69.9 yuan.
Such manoeuvre, often called IP licensing in China, has been picked up by a string of companies including Tencent and NetEase.
In another development, Baidu is also banking on online paid knowledge services and speeding up its layout in the video content sector, as reported by China Daily.http://global.chinadaily.com.cn/a/201912/17/WS5df84ab2a310cf3e3557eaa5.html
A search of zhi shi fu fei (paid knowledge service) on itjuzi.com will find 2,274 companies, which attempt to make money from digital content on WeChat or apps. Jianzhikeji.com, established in August 2018 by Xie Guanpeng provides paid knowledge service to what it calls ”women in ordinary families and age 25-45,” trying to help address relationship, living, parenting and marital problems.
According to iResearch, China‘s online paid knowledge market size was about 4.91 billion yuan in 2017, which was almost three times larger than that of the previous year. With the gradual increase of market education level and the increasing number of people who are willing to pay for high-quality knowledge services, online paid knowledge market size will maintain a relatively high growth in the next three years, and it is expected to reach RMB 23.5 billion by 2020. (http://www.iresearchchina.com/content/details8_42838.html)
A friend of mine has recently commented to me
“You will never get what you expect by paying to such services. Luo Zhenyu, founder of Luogic Show, said he helps people to save time and get more knowledge. Fan Deng, the founder of a popular book club company, reads books for you. But the knowledge you hope to get can only be acquired in traditional, old ways.”
Written by ukingsun(WeChat)/ukingsun@qq.com
